Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Controversy at Univ. of Chicago: "Men in Power"

Note: The 2.4% male-female jobless rate gap in April is at an all-time historical high.

Job Losses During the Recession:Male: 79% of totalFemale: 21% of total

Bachelor's DegreesFemale: 57.4%Male: 42.6%

Master's DegreesFemale: 60%Male: 40%

Note: Women earn 135 bachelor's degrees for every 100 degrees earned by men, and by 2016 that ratio is projected to be 150:100. Women earn 150 master's degrees for every 100 degrees for men, and that ratio is expected to be 170:100 within seven years.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE -- A group of University of Chicago students think it's time the campus focused more on its men. A third-year student from Lake Bluff has formed Men in Power, a student organization that promises to help men get ahead professionally. But the group's emergence has been controversial, with some critics charging that its premise is misogynistic. Others say it's about time men are championed, noting that recent job losses hit men harder and that women earn far more bachelor's and master's degrees than do men (see data above).

Forming a campus group dedicated to meeting with guys just to "get ahead" isn't really a guy-thing to do. I wouldn't go to it. I would find a professional society that allowed me to connect with people in my given field. I think that would be much more effective than a men-only club that only cares if you are a guy or not.

Still, there is a lot to the idea that men are discriminated against in the United States. If we go on results, man are incarcerated at much higher rates, commit suicide at higher rates, get murdered more often, die younger, die in wars, do nearly all the dirty jobs etc.I'll tell you this: In my next life, I want to come back as a pretty blonde with big boobs. But hey, life is not fair. We can waa-waa, or we can try to forge ahead. I prefer the latter.

"I'd like to see statistics on the number of women in Computer Science, Engineering, Architecture, Mathematics, Biology, etc. If those percentages are rising, I'll be very impressed."

If you substitute chemistry and physics for biology, then your belief that there still are few women studying those fields is correct. Unfortunately, there also are fewer American males in those fields. Many of the students in the hard sciences and engineering come from foreign countries (especially India and China). The subjects are too difficult for most Americans who have gone through self-esteem inducing but intellectually unchallenging curricula in our public schools.

A woman in a "mathy", traditionally male dominated field and in the most male dominated portion of that field here. Also, a very high paying field (if you can survive, and I can).

I haven't noticed our numbers increasing. Most fields which are high paying are also risky and require a certain amount of aggression and thickness of skin that women tend to naturally reject. So, I'm betting those statistics are going to show a lot of humanities degrees and a preference for lower paying jobs. Even when women get degrees in finance and economics (as I did), they opt for the lower paying but less risky jobs.

When parents look at their daughter and at their son they are thinking, "Other parents are providing some advantages towards their child's future. If I do same thing for my child thus I am being unfair to other children. Ah! But then my child is the only child without someone cheating for her/him. Thus I'll need to leave more money in my will to my own children for them to break even. I'll need to give my child early start towards education for her/him to break even. My child will need to learn alphabet before age 2 and how to read before age 3 and how to master single variable differential calculus before high school. But my son will have opportunities in military. My daughter will not have quite the same openings for her as special agent in State Department. I'll need to spend more time preparing the infrastructure for her education than time spent with my son."

This kind of thinking extends past the immediate family to the cousins, to the gifted child in the neighborhood and even across the ocean. I was lucky to grow up in the kind of neighborhood where the bright men pitched in and helped the plodding bankers with children who could put to good use an early start. The man who never got degree may someday push his daughter ahead of his son for academia. His neighbor may teach his son to be a tennis champion.

I'm sure that there are genetic reasons for fewer female math students. That said, all of the women in my family were directed toward math-oriented professions and majors such as computer science and electrical engineering. Most women I grew up with weren't. And I'm not THAT old, so we're talking post-women's lib here.

Although, I'm certain genetics and socialization play a large role in women's choice of majors and professions, I do think women tend to opt out of highly competitive professions for some very practical reasons. Women must bear the physical consequences of child birth and it is virtually impossible to get pregnant, think while pregnant, give birth and remain sharp and competitive.

I happen to love and be pretty good at what I do and, like men, I've never had any compunction about bargaining for better pay and leaving when I had better offers. As a result, my compensation has always been at the top of the range for my position - until figured I could do even better by striking out on my own. Which brings me to another point - one reason women are compensated less than men for comparable positions is that women often avoid bargaining and are less likely to take the risk of entrepreneurship. I really think a lot of it is offspring related.

Ever since the womens liberation movement, there has been an open bias in education (as well as in our society and culture in general) towards women and against men, especially the white, heterosexual. I am a woman who has never been comfortable with the Gloria Steinems of the world acting as if they represent me. I have a son and a daughter and want opportunities for both of them, regardless of their gender. The pendulum needs to be swayed back towards men. And no, I am not a self-loathing woman who wishes I were a man. I am just a woman who does not want the government favoring any one group over another. Every American who treasures the Constitution should also condemn Obama's choice for the Supreme Court. Being a minority and woman should not give her an automatic right of passage.

I completely agree with everything you said in your post. I can't stand the "women's lib" stuff because the likes of Gloria Steinem's understanding of a "liberated woman" is as rigid and stifling as the traditional definition of womanhood imposed by the norms of a paternalistic society. I am an individual first. A person. And I resent attempts to sweep me into a collective by little tyrants like Gloria. And why do we "need" more women in certain professions, schools, etc. instead of qualified individuals irrespective of race or sex?

It's time to finally put to bed the lie that "women don't make as much as men". What was true at one point is not anymore.

In my law school, there are at least 6 women for every 4 men. At my job, there are 4 men and 7 women (all law students). Title VII and other "Civil Rights" laws have kept women as a protected class, when they obviously no longer need it.

That was the clearest delineation of the effects of pregnancy and childbirth on women's performance that I've read. The trouble with early feminists is that they attempted to deny biology altogether. In their defense, watch an episode of "MadMen" and see how women were treated in a man's world, and why that gave rise to the "protected class."

I agree with a lot of what's been said, and, honestly, with a lot of the motivations of this group; however, I do feel that the statistics misrepresent the reality of the situation, and can lead to a lot of fallacious conclusions.

Robert, one source of reliable commentary about this is Dr. Warren Farrell, one of the few writers on "men's issues". Start with "The Myth of Male Power" and go from there.

Farrell is a former president of NOW in the Tri-State area (IIRC). During the 1970s, he used to speak out about how men abused women, now he notes that it's not quite so one-sided as all that -- One of the most amusing things is that laws passed requiring that anyone who strikes their spouse goes to jail is that -- targeting abusive men -- the result has instead been not more men going to jail, the net effect is more women going to jail... because women strike first far more often than was formerly recognized.

About 2 decades ago, a student at the University of FL attempted to start a "National Organization for Men", with the goal of calling attention to men's issues.

First off, in order to get university recognition, you must have a faculty sponsor. The student in question could not get any professor, but he did get a TA/Grad student to sign on as sponsor.

In short order, the TA was hounded into backing out of his sponsorship, which led to him not having any sponsor, and being unable to find anyone willing to sponsor him (now, ask yourself --- if this had been a matter of, oh, race relations -- do you think that the university would have appointed someone to be the sponsor, for, say, a "National Organization for Blacks", if they couldn't find a sponsor?)..

So said organization was very short-lived. No sponsor, no recognition, no use of university facilities for meetings, etc. ...

Hence, I give this organization about 3 terms. Things have not gotten better in this regard in the last 20 years...

First, I call attention to his observation in The Myth of Male Power about this matter:The U.S. Census Bureau found that as early as 1960, never-married women over 45 earned more in the workplace than never-married men over 45. - Warren Farrell -

Right. 1960. *BEFORE* the women's movement.

He also fleshed this out with an entire book on the subject:

Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap—and What Women Can Do About ItIt probably won't tell you anything you haven't figured out, but you'll probably like it anyway.